In America; The Anti-Pol Pol

By BOB HERBERT

Published: January 31, 2000

With his New Hampshire poll numbers sinking and a defeat in Iowa already on his resume, Bill Bradley decided last week that it was time to transform himself into the man he said he wasn't.

Jettisoning high-mindedness, he picked out a bargain-basement politician's suit (tall, but otherwise typical), found that it fit quite nicely and then spent the rest of the week running around New Hampshire shouting ''Liar, liar, pants on fire!'' at Al Gore.

It wasn't very seemly. We'll find out tomorrow if it worked.

Mr. Bradley has strained from the outset to present himself as somehow better than most politicians -- smarter, more honorable, less devious. He scoffed at the use of ''tactics'' in a campaign, and he disdained pandering. He would leave that to the Clintons and Gores of the world.

Sure, he changed his mind on ethanol, suddenly favoring federal tax benefits for the gasoline additive that is made from corn, and, yes, that flip-flop just happened to coincide with the approach of the Iowa caucuses -- but in Mr. Bradley's view, that wouldn't be pandering or politics as usual. Not at all.

Even as the whistle-clean former Knick and former senator amazed the so-called experts with his extraordinary fund-raising ability, he would earnestly lecture voters on the evils of harvesting so much cash. He would mock the lobbyists with their cell phones and ''Gucci shoes'' and say, ''We all know that money distorts politics.''

Mr. Bradley was above it all. He would loll back in his chair, cross his long legs and languorously tell his audiences that he wanted to run for president ''in a different kind of way.'' He would discuss his grand ideas and his vision of ''a world of new possibilities, guided by goodness.'' He was the authentic candidate, morally upright, comfortable with himself.

So it was amusing to see him jolted from his complacency last week by plummeting poll numbers and the continuing torments of the gleefully malicious Mr. Gore. The vice president, who does in fact have a scruples gap, has always known that a run for the White House is not a civics lesson, but an exercise in political combat that can approach the intensity of a holy war.

By the end of the week Mr. Bradley seemed right at home in the world of politics as usual. He questioned the vice president's veracity so often he began to sound like Bob Dole in 1988 when he famously snarled at George Bush, ''Stop lying about my record.''

''When you listen to Al Gore speak, you have to listen very carefully because he uses words in a very tricky manner,'' said Mr. Bradley.

Is the vice president tricky? Yes, he is. To a fault. But so is Mr. Bradley, who campaigns loudly on behalf of the poor but doesn't say much about his close ties to big chemical companies and to Wall Street. And who brags about his role in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 without mentioning the billions of dollars' worth of exemptions that were enjoyed by hundreds of corporations.

You want tricky? Last December a child asked Mr. Bradley if he was rich and he said no. Another child asked if he was a millionaire. Mr. Bradley said, ''I guess if you added everything up, it would come close.''

The former senator is actually worth between $5 million and $20 million, according to his federal financial disclosure forms.

In the past few days Mr. Bradley has been on the air with attack ads on the issue of abortion, an issue on which there is not a whisper's worth of difference between him and Mr. Gore. It is, frankly, weird to watch two Democrats fighting over who is purer on the pro-choice issue, even as a gaggle of conservative Republicans argue over who is purer when it comes to being pro-life.

Mr. Bradley is actually very good on a number of issues of concern to women, issues worth highlighting. But his own tricky inner politician is sending him the message that politicians have always embraced -- you do what you gotta do. The only difference with Mr. Bradley is his relentless insistence that he's different.

Voters in New Hampshire and elsewhere will decide who is more or less tricky, more or less appealing, more or less right for the job of president. But over the last week, Mr. Bradley has come out of his lofty closet and shown that when the crunch comes he is perfectly willing to dive into the type of politics he has professed to abhor.